The Outlook Find feature and the new mail notifications do not work after you apply Windows XP Service Pack 2

SYMPTOMS

After you apply Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) on your computer, you may notice that the following symptoms occur in Microsoft Outlook:

When you connect to a Microsoft Exchange Server-based computer and receive a new e-mail message, you are not prompted with a notification, and the new e-mail message does not automatically appear in your Inbox. If you click Send/Receive or another Outlook folder, and then you click your Inbox folder to update the Outlook message pane, any new e-mail messages that you have will appear.

When you try to send an e-mail message in Outlook, the e-mail message may remain in your Outbox folder longer than expected. Or, there may be a delay before the e-mail message is sent.

When you use the Find feature, Outlook may stop responding. For example, if you click Find on the Tools menu, type a word in the Look for box, and then press ENTER, Outlook may stop responding.

Note You do not experience this issue with Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 or with Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 when you use the Find feature. The Find feature in Outlook 2007 and in Outlook 2003 works as expected.

CAUSE

This issue occurs because Outlook uses the user datagram protocol (UDP) to receive new e-mail message notifications, to update folder views, and to perform searches. By default, when you apply Windows XP SP2, it turns on the Windows Firewall. The Windows Firewall blocks the UDP packets that Outlook uses for new e-mail message notifications and for the Find feature.

Because UDP is a connectionless protocol and the Outlook client does not initiate the communication with the server, the Windows Firewall interprets the UDP packets as unsolicited and blocks them.

WORKAROUND

To work around this issue, you must make some configuration changes to the Windows Firewall for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, Microsoft Office Outlook 2003, for Microsoft Outlook 2002, and for Microsoft Outlook 2000 to add the Outlook.exe program to Exceptions list.

For Outlook 2002 and 2000, you must also create a registry key to override the registry key set that is maintained by Windows XP SP2.

For all versions of Outlook

Follow these steps to add the Outlook.exe program to the Exceptions list of your Windows Firewall:

Click Start, click Run, type firewall.cpl, and then click OK.

Click Exceptions, and then click Add Program.

Locate and then select the Outlook.exe program, and then click Add.

Registry information for Outlook 2002

To turn on RPC Polling in Outlook 2002, Microsoft Office XP Service Pack 1 is required.

Note If Microsoft Office 2000 Service Pack 3 is not applied, Outlook 2000 will ignore the ForcePolling registry key.

You must manually create the following keys to override the ForcePolling registry value that is set by Windows XP SP2. To do this, follow these steps.

Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

On the Edit menu, click Add Key, and then type Office. The class is None.

Click the Office key, click the Edit menu, click Add Key, and then type 10.0. The class is None.

Click the 10.0 key, click the Edit menu, click Add Key, and then type Outlook. The class is None.

Click the Outlook key, click the Edit menu, click Add Key, and then type RPC. The class is None.

On the Edit menu, click Add Value, and then type ForcePolling. The data type is REG_DWORD,and the value is 0.

Registry information for Outlook 2000

To turn on RPC polling in Outlook 2000, Microsoft Office 2000 Service Pack 3 is required. After the update is applied to the system, you must change the registry. To do this, follow these steps:

Click Start, and then click Run.

In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.

Locate and then click to select the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft

On the Edit menu, click Add Key, and then type Office. The class is None.

Click the Office key, click the Edit menu, click Add Key, and then type 9.0. The class is None.

Click the 9.0 key, click the Edit menu, click Add Key, and then type Outlook. The class is None.

Click the Outlook key, click the Edit menu, click Add Key, and then type RPC. The class is None.

On the Edit menu, click Add Value, and then type ForcePolling. The data type is REG_DWORD,and the value is 0.

Note If Microsoft Office 2000 Service Pack 3 is not applied, Outlook 2000 will ignore the ForcePolling registry key.

MORE INFORMATION

You cannot open a specific external port number on the Windows Firewall to work around this issue in Outlook 2000 and in Outlook 2002, because both of those versions of Outlook assignthe UDP port number dynamically between 1024 and 65535.

Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2003 include a registry key that allows the setting of a static UDP port for new mail notification packets. This registry key is available only in Outlook 2003 or in later versions of Outlook. You can modify the following registry key to specify a UDP port number:

When you use the Find feature in Outlook 2003 or in Outlook 2007, you do not experience the symptoms that are described in the "Symptoms" section. Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007 do not use the UDP to perform searches.

For more information about the ICF, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: